Android users can now ask Alexa to send SMS messages

When it comes to smart speakers, your two best options lie with ones powered by the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. Each platform has its own unique set of strengths and weaknesses, but Amazon just got a nice lead over Google with support for sending SMS messages.

If you own an Echo or another Alexa-powered speaker, saying "Alexa, send a message" will now let you send SMS messages from your phone number to whatever recipient you'd like. You should see a prompt to guide you through setting this up the next time you open your Alexa app, and it's as easy as going to Conversation -> Contacts -> My Profile and then enabling the toggle labeled "Send SMS."

Alexa has previously been able to send messages to other people that have the Alexa app installed on their phone, and while it'll still try and default to this when saying "Alexa, send a message", it can now opt to send an SMS if it detects the person you're trying to contact doesn't have the app. Additionally, you can just say "Alexa, send a text" if you want to force it to just send an SMS and not try sending a message to someone else's Alexa app.

This feature should be available to use now, but at least for the time being, you'll need to have an Android phone in order for this to work.

It's exciting to see Amazon finally release a feature like this, but as a Google Home owner myself, it has me even more anxious for Google to roll out something similar.